Patriots rookie Thompkins making most of opportunity

The ringing endorsement he was hoping to receive from the NFL never came. Wide receiver Kenbreell Thompkins’ name wasn’t called, his phone didn’t ring, during the Draft. But he’s living the dream with the Patriots right now.

The ringing endorsement he was hoping to receive from the NFL never came.

"That’s a guy’s dream, to hear their name get called," wide receiver Kenbrell Thompkins said, "and for it not to get called is just something that I’ll remember for the rest of my life."

Thompkins’ name wasn’t called, his phone didn’t ring, during the Draft.

But he’s living the dream with the Patriots right now.

"No anger at all. No anger at all," the former University of Cincinnati Bearcat said nearly four months after the fact. "I’m not in control of the draft boards and who they draft or who they want to put on their team or anything like that.

"All I can control is where I end up, and I’m just trying to just live in the moment and take care of what I can take care of."

Signed by the Patriots on May 3, the 6-foot-1, 195-pound Thompkins has seized the moment, making an impression with the team that dates back to its offseason camps.

After catching four passes for 23 yards in the Patriots’ 31-22 preseason-opening victory at Philadelphia the previous week, there he was on Friday night, getting the starting nod and drawing extensive playing time in Friday night’s 25-21 win over the Tampa Bay Buccaneers at Gillette Stadium.

Granted, his production was negligible – targeted on three passes, he caught one for 3 yards – and Patriots head coach Bill Belichick warned about reading too much into things during a conference call on Saturday. But still, it’s difficult not to view it all as yet another step forward in the rather remarkable trek that has taken Thompkins from the hardened streets he grew up on in the Liberty City section of Miami to Lincoln Financial Field one week and Gillette Stadium the next.

Thompkins’ past – seven arrests as a teenager, the charges he faced as serious as armed robbery and possession of cocaine – has been well documented.

"It wasn’t until I watched my younger brother (Kendal) earn a scholarship to the University of Miami," Thompkins said in an SI.com article from 2010, "that I woke up and realized I could do the same thing."

After setting the school record for receiving yards at El Camino Community College in Torrance, Calif., Thompkins, who’d been a teammate of Patriots defensive lineman Marcus Forston at Miami Northwestern Senior High School, made his way to Cincinnati.

In two seasons with the Bearcats, Thompkins caught 78 passes for 1,077 yards and four touchdowns in 26 games, his 15.9-yard average per reception ranking fifth in the Big East in 2012.

Now 25, the cousin of Pittsburgh Steelers wide receiver Antonio Brown, is attempting to make a name for himself in the NFL with a wide receiver corps that will bear little resemblance to the one the Patriots fielded in 2012.

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"(There are) a lot of fresh faces in our receiving room," said fifth-year veteran Danny Amendola, who’s in his first season in New England, "and we’re just all trying to get on the same page."